Bare Bones
by SparksFlyOut
Summary: ... in which Phil swallows his pride, and Matt receives an unexpected visitor. Some ties bind you, whether you want them to or not.


**A/N:** So, I wanted to finish an oldish one-shot, and in all honesty, having written this seriously makes me want to punch myself in the face, because this is pretty much as RPF as it can get. And I was never supposed to write RPF. Reading it? No problemo. But writing? Still a grey area for me... Anyway, it's done, so might as well post it. Takes place around Christmas 2009; I think the timeline might be a bit screwed up, but whatever, it's just a one-shot. :D

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the WWE or anybody mentioned in this story in any way, they belong to themselves and no-one else. None of this has actually happened nor ever will; everything's just a figment of my imagination.

**Warnings:** Implied Jeff/Punk, some language and mentions of drug use. (I swear I didn't mean it to happen, but you may find some fleeting, one-sided Matt/Punk if you reeeaally squint.) Lots of talk. If you're a fan of action, you're probably not going to like this.

* * *

**Bare Bones**

_Every one of us would be a coward if we just had the guts_

Occasionally Matt Hardy finds himself wondering, truly wondering, just how two people can share the same last name and yet have such different views on life.

Essentially him and Jeff are carved from the same wood, he knows it – or at least that's what he has always thought – but it seems to him that at some point a path has diverged into two different directions, and Jeff has taken the other one with inconceivable ease while Matt is left standing at the crossroads, uncertain of which way he is supposed to go or whether he is supposed to go at all, all the while trying to keep Jeff somewhat in sight. And still it continues; of course, Matt has his own life to live, but somehow he feels as if being his brother's keeper is the role that was assigned to him already at birth, if not earlier, and that's how it is and will be from here to eternity.

It is not like he hates it. He loves his brother very much and he is pretty sure that he would do anything, absolutely anything, to keep him from harm's way, but it is really not like he has an actual say in that. Because even though Matt occasionally finds it hard to believe, Jeff is a grown-up man who does as he pleases, and the day he lets someone stop him will be a cold day in hell. Their life choices collide more often than they don't; it's been like that since they were children, and it is probably going to be like that until the both of them lay cold in their coffins.

They have had rather strained terms lately, and the reason for that has not quite opened up to Matt – he had thought that Jeff's departure would have brought them closer together (as they don't have to look at each others' faces all the time at work anymore). Instead it only seems to have caused them to drift further apart, and even though a part of Matt hates it, there is another, more complex part of him that sighs from relief; Jeff can truly be a high-maintenance person when the mood strikes him. Their feud at the spring had mostly been great fun, but it had also been wearing, and the both of them could not have been happier once it was over. It has, however, left some kind of a bizarre aftertaste in its wake; it isn't bad, as such, but strange, like the taste of a dental filling. Matt cannot pinpoint it, and he feels he doesn't even have the energy to start and untangle it.

He thinks about how long a road it is from past to present; causes, effects, traces, paths. He feels the sting of his conscience just for thinking about it, but the way he sees it, Jeff is probably better off in TNA. He has nothing but the utmost respect towards the WWE and how they have handled Jeff and his issues over the years, but perhaps, in the end, Jeff was always too much of a free spirit for them, his ambitions always as high-flying as the man himself; to light up the WWE, the wrestling world, his _own _world, and it's not like Jeff has failed in doing so. It's just that the price he has paid for all that did not have to be this high, at least if you ask Matt - of course, whether there is anyone to ask, is another matter entirely.

And whether Jeff would suffer from all these spillover effects had he not dismantled himself into so many pieces in order to be everything he wants to be and do everything he wants to do is yet another question with no answer. Jeff has a habit of not leaving anything halfway, and anyone with that particular trait knows that it can be a curse as much as it can be a blessing. But what can one do when one has a burning desire to have an impact; to explore life and all its aspects and lend a helping hand to those who need it.

These, among some others, are the thoughts in Matt's head as he sits in his hotel room in Michigan, idly flipping through TV's premium channels. On some channel a woman in the local news is talking about how there is a blizzard raising hell in the area, and even though Matt can't see outside from where he is sitting, he doesn't doubt that. There had already been a good three inches of snow on the ground when he drove his rental Jeep Compass to the hotel parking lot two and a half hours ago.

Matt yawns and shuts the TV down, ready to go to bed. He has only taken a couple of steps towards the bathroom, though, when there's a knock on the door - a quiet and impatient,_ I don't want people to know I'm here_ kind of knock. Matt frowns. It's half past ten already; he isn't expecting any company, or room service for that matter, and the vast majority of the roster is probably out partying anyway.

He pads to the door with a loud "Yeah, coming!" as whoever it is who is knocking is getting increasingly impatient. He doesn't bother to look through the eyehole but opens the door straight away, and is met by a rigid and disheveled, yet always somehow mesmerizing presence of Phil Brooks.

There is five seconds of utter, acid silence between the two of them, and Matt expects Phil to fill it (it would make sense, after all he's the one who knocked on _Matt's_ door), but he does nothing of the sort, and it is getting awkward pretty damn quickly. _You should probably say something, __**anything**__, _Matt's brain kindly offers, _because he isn't going to. Any moment now would be great. _

"What the hell do you want?"

Granted, they aren't the best of friends, but that sounded a little crude even to Matt himself. He could probably have come up with a greeting less impolite, but seeing Phil standing at his hotel room door, right here and now, while a mid-December winter storm is raging outside the building, is so utterly surprising that he can't think of anything else to say.

Phil just smiles lopsidedly. "Lucky I wasn't expecting a warm welcome, I would've been greatly disappointed."

Matt just stares at him. The two share a job, but when they aren't feuding, they have nothing to do with each other, and both parties are more than fine with that. Matt would like to think that they have somehow both grown up professionally as well as characteristically, and they probably have, too, because their interaction is not quite the fire and brimstone it used to be in the past. That means they are both professionals enough to be civil to each other if the situation calls for it, but they definitely don't hang out outside work if they can avoid it, and they _most_ definitely do not pay visits to each others' hotel rooms. All in all they see each other so little that Matt feels as if he is looking at Phil properly for the first time in years... and he cannot quite decipher what he is seeing.

Phil's smile fades and he crosses his arms. "You want me to broadcast this all around the hallway, or...?" He gestures towards the room.

Matt blinks. "Oh." It had not even crossed his mind that the other man might want to come in (even though it is quite obvious now that Matt thinks about it, why else would he be standing in the doorway?) and he's too surprised to do anything else but blurt out a rude "Is that necessary?"

"Yes." Phil doesn't wait for a further invitation, but pushes himself past Matt and into the room.

The man looks like he hasn't slept for days (_but then_, Matt thinks, _doesn't he always look like that?)_ and the dark shadows under his eyes make him look like a ghost from someone's past. His dark hair is combed on a neat ponytail, but Matt suspects it's done just to create an illusion that he cares about his appearance, because his stubble must be at least a couple of weeks old. He's wearing an oversized black hoodie, worn-out jeans and Converse sneakers that he apparently hasn't bothered to tie up; it's almost as if he has already been in bed but then rushed back up for some irrevocable reason and wore the first pieces of clothing at hand. In short terms, he looks like in desperate need of a long holiday and, if Matt didn't know better, a nice, cold beer. Matt almost wants to offer him one, just to see what kind of a reaction it would ignite, but decides that it's probably better not to.

"I can't possibly look _that_ interesting." Phil's slightly amused voice pierces the wall of Matt's thoughts, and he notices that the younger man is looking at him with a rather cutting smile on his lips. "You're spacing out a lot this evening."

"Shut up," Matt grunts and closes the door, then turns back to Phil. "Again, what do you want?"

"To talk, mainly," Phil says lightly, but doesn't look at Matt rather than everything else in the room, and Matt smells trouble in the air, already regretting having opened the door in the first place. He cannot think of any rational topic that Phil would want to talk about with him, and he reckons that whatever it is, it's hardly going to be something that you discuss over an afternoon tea.

"I see. I'd offer you coffee, but it seems to me that you haven't been drinking much anythin' else lately."

Phil folds his tattooed arms and his voice is tantalizing when he says; "Would you really offer me coffee if I asked?"

"No. Not really." Matt takes a couple of leisurely steps towards the minibar and opens it up. "But if you don't mind, I think yours truly needs a beer. Or are you gonna whine about it?"

Phil simply shrugs as he sits down on one of the armchairs in the room. "Not unless you want me to. It doesn't really rattle my cage what you do or don't do, Hardy." He is quiet for a moment and then adds; "At least you can keep it under control."

Matt can hear the unspoken finish to that sentence loud and clear, and it declares 'unlike your brother'. He rolls his eyes, his words accompanied by a hissing sound as he opens a bottle of Budweiser; "Ah, there it is. I was expectin' that. I hate to break this to you, buddy, but if you wanna bash Jeff, you came to a wrong place."

The last thing he wants is to hear Phil badmouthing Jeff - he has heard enough of that for a lifetime. At the same time, in some twisted, self-pitying way he's sad that apparently this whole thing doesn't have anything to do with him, because nothing ever truly seems to be about him. But he would never in a million years admit it to anybody, least to himself.

Phil lifts his gaze to Matt and raises his eyebrows. "I said nothing about Jeff. And I didn't mean it like that, either."

It is Matt's turn to raise his eyebrows. "Yeah? That'd be the first." He sits down on the sofa opposite of Phil, taking a mouthful of beer, and suddenly a thought springs to his mind. It's ridiculous that he hasn't thought of it until now.

"Look, if this is about Amy you can leave right away, 'cause I don't -"

"This has nothing to do with Amy," Phil says sternly, clearly not wanting to go down_ that_ road - and Matt doesn't either. He doesn't know whether Phil and Amy are still dating or not, and even though he still considers Amy as a friend, he couldn't care less, because it is none of his business.

"What's this about then?"

"Well, I..." Phil closes his mouth, and his lips form a thin line. Finally he says; "As I said a moment ago, it doesn't really matter to me what you do. But it matters to me what the other Hardy does."

"Uhh... you mean Jeff?"

"Yes, I obviously mean Jeff, unless you've got a secret brother stashed away somewhere," Phil snaps sarcastically, but the fact that he's unsure about this whole thing (whatever it is) is written all over his weary face.

Matt leans back on his chair. "I knew this had somethin' to do with him after all."

"Doesn't everything?" Phil asks his eyebrow raised. And suddenly, absurdly, Matt thinks... no, he _knows _ that Phil knows exactly what he thought a minute ago, about how everything is always about Jeff and never about him, and it's laughable because Phil is not a mind reader, but somehow he knows, and Matt feels like he has suddenly stepped into a room full of mirrors – he knows that Phil knows that he knows, and so on and so on, until they meet somewhere on the other side of the mirror and it will be a whole different world.

"Have you really got any idea what kind of a state he's in?"

Matt blinks awake and for a second it doesn't even register to him what Phil just said. He had expected to hear some kind of a cutting comment about his selfish feelings, _well I guess that proves once and for all how little you care about your brother,_ something like that; whatever it is that Matt had expected Phil to say, this most certainly is not it. There is a worried edge to Phil's voice, not the judgmental one that Matt is used to, and it makes Matt grow all the more weary, because, well, that is not the Phil he is used dealing with.

"I'm sorry?"

"You heard me just fine, Hardy," he states bluntly, and now _that_ sounds more like the usual Phil. "Look, I didn't exactly plan to come here, but seeing as I'm here now anyway, I need to talk about this. If I leave without doing so, I know I'll never bring it up again, because, well..." He takes a deep breath, "... because that's just how I am."

Matt lets out a frustrated laugh; somehow he does not doubt the veracity of that statement at all. "Yeah, you're a lot of things, _Brooks_," he says, emphasizing the last word. "But I still don't get it."

Phil shrugs. "Of course you don't. How could you? You haven't even talked to him for weeks."

Matt stares at him, blinks, and finally leans slowly forward and puts his beer on the table. "Okay. You better tell me right now what the fuck you're talkin' about."

Phil is leaning his face on his fist, drumming the armrest of the chair with his fingers. His earth-colored eyes seem to impale Matt's bones, and for a moment the mirrors are back in the room, but the feeling vanishes when Phil starts to talk.

"You know what he's like. So do I. Sometimes it seems to me that he's just a kid lost in the adults' world. And yet when you try to reason with him, he shuts you out mercilessly, as if you never were of any significance to him and will never be again. He takes it as an insult because he thinks he knows how to run his life and everyone else's just supposed to go along with it. Which would be fine, but I think, and I don't even know if he realizes it himself... that somehow everything he touches eventually burns down to ashes. "

As pitiless as Phil's description of Jeff is, there really is a certain ring of truth to it, and even Matt, despite his obvious bias, can easily admit that. The whole thing sounds more than a little eerie coming out of Phil's mouth, however, and before Matt can open his own mouth to argue even though he knows everything that was said is more or less true, he suddenly knows that his words would tackle and stumble and cling to each other like a bunch of flies stuck in honey.

And even though he actually does not want to hear another word of it, he says evenly; "Go on."

Phil smiles oddly, as if he has just solved some great riddle. Then he continues; "I can't be sure what this is really about, but I think there are things in the past, things he wants to forget but can't. The ghosts of those things walk along his footsteps, and he can't run away from them, because they _are _him. And whatever it is, I know how it goes when you bring it up, how it always goes - he'll just say that it's nothing and tells you to stop worrying about him, but it's not 'nothing'. He's in a bad shape, Matt, and I'm afraid of what might happen."

For a moment Phil looks exactly how Matt feels – tired to the bone, and it is the kind of tiredness that has nothing to do with lack of sleep.

"I know he doesn't want you to know any of this, but you need to hear it. I'm not saying it's necessarily just about drugs; it's probably not. I think they're a result rather than a reason. And I know I sound like a high school teacher who's worried about his student, but listen... he's been shutting himself off. From _everybody." _Phil shifts uncomfortably, and Matt wonders briefly who exactly does 'everybody' include. "Sometimes he disappears for days and no-one seems to know where he's gone; then he comes back and acts as if nothing ever happened. He needs some kind of an intervention. And I'm not talking about that dumb TV show, but about someone who loves him as he is, his faults and all, trying to help him to hit the brake before he gets himself into hospital or killed."

The more Phil talks, the angrier Matt starts to feel. Not because the things he says would not be true, but because in the pit of his stomach he knows they_ are_ - and because somehow, in the world that Matt has been living in to this day, Phil has no right to such things about Jeff. Such _true_ things. Lies are a matter of their own, and one can always shun them away as exactly that, but it is harder for Matt to close his ears from things he knows to be true, things that he has experienced first hand.

"It's not my business to go to details, but -"

"You're right, it's _not_ your business," Matt cuts in, unable to restrain himself. "What makes you think you know anythin' about that? About Jeff? What the hell gives you the right to barge in here and tell _me_ what _my _brother needs?"

Phil glares at him, his eyes cold as a dead body. "You know it's all true."

"Whether it's true or not doesn't matter! How is this any of your business?" It is not even a rhetorical question – why Phil would sacrifice two seconds of his time for Jeff's sake is beyond Matt. "You have any idea what it's like to try and talk sense to him when he wants to hear _none of it? _When there are times he thinks he only comes alive when he's on the brink of death? You know what it's like, havin' him callin' you in the middle of the night and hearin' nothin' but silence at the other end?"

"Yeah, I do, actually!" Phil raises his voice as well, but Matt is too angry to pay attention to what he is saying.

"I mean... who the _fuck _ do you think you are!? I've dealt with him for years on end!"

"This isn't the time for your idiotic bravado," Phil hisses, simmering with badly repressed anger. "Your brother needs help, and what I want to know is whether you're able to give it to him or not."

"If you think you know him so fuckin' well, why don't _you_ help him!?"

"_Because it isn't my job but yours!"_ Phil shouts, his fingers digging into the soft material of the cream-colored chair, and he looks like he's about to jump up and onto Matt's throat. Something in the way he says it silences Matt altogether, not the threat but rather the sheer desperation somewhere in the bottom of that voice. He can't think of a comeback even though he is burning to give one, and suddenly the air between them is charged with some kind of choking electricity, like seconds before lightning strikes, and they both seem to acknowledge it as neither of them says another word.

After the thick, heavy silence has lasted for what feels like an eternity, Phil finally talks - his voice is serene enough, but his jaw is still clenched and his palms are balled into tight fists.

"Sorry. I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to throw accusations around. I just wish you understood what it took for me to come here."

"What? What did it actually take for you to come here?" Matt snorts. "You want a medal for walkin' up the stairs?"

"That's not what I meant, and no, I don't want a medal. But it'd be nice if you dropped the attitude for a second."

"If someone in this room has an attitude, Brooks, it sure as hell ain't me," Matt says and rubs his face. "You know... Jeff would go fuckin' ballistic if he knew we're fightin' about him in the middle of the night like this."

"I know," Phil says, so quietly that it's almost a whisper, and Matt wants to ask how he thinks he knows that, but then decides that it is not important, not yet at least. It would probably just spark another shouting contest, anyway.

"I'm not sure how, but you were right," he says instead; a little sourly, not very happy about the fact that it is indeed true. "I haven't talked to Jeff in weeks. We usually call each other almost every day, but lately I've felt we just argue every time we do talk. And I've had issues of my own, too, so..." He leaves the rest hanging and grabs his beer just to give his hands something to do. "I know it's not an excuse, though. Also, I have no idea why I'm apologizin' myself to you."

Phil grins; it is actually a grin that his mouth is forming, albeit a small one. "Maybe I'm just the kind of person that people want to apologize to, you know? The one you can confess your sins and get away with them."

The mere thought of that is somehow so absurd that Matt cannot help but to let out a huff of a laugh. "Oh, absolutely. That's the exact image you're givin' out, Brooks, you can believe that. Talk about a good fuckin' Samaritan."

Phil's vague grin fades away and he shrugs, his eyes not leaving Matt's. "There's a universal truth I think you and I should both learn, Hardy, and it's called 'nothing's ever what it seems'."

Matt suspects that it is probably true, because otherwise the two of them wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation, not in this world or in any other. Had somebody told him a week ago that this was going to happen, he would have laughed in their face.

"Speakin' of things that aren't what they seem," he starts, trails off, trying to regain his composure; he feels he's treading on unknown grounds here, and one misstep would be enough to lead him to paths he does not want to walk along. "I just... I don't understand. I mean... I would if this was just about you bein' the asshole you usually are, preachin' from your ivory tower... no offence." Phil raises his eyebrow at that, his smile a little too sharp. "But why do you wanna help him so bad?"

Phil must have anticipated that he would hear that question in some form or another at some point, and yet he now frowns upon hearing it. "Because I..." He falls silent. Finally he says softly; "Because I worry for him, Matt. I think he's in way over his head this time."

Matt isn't sure whether that is what Phil meant to say at all, but nonetheless, it isn't the answer he expected to hear. Despite whatever personal schisms they might have between them, Matt has always thought Phil as a good, smart man initially - it's just that sometimes he seems to be completely blind to his own selfishness. And the fact that Phil seems to be here now for a reason that has very little to do with the aftermentioned trait leaves Matt kind of... lost.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

Matt folds his arms. "Why do you care?"

"What exactly are you accusing me of?" Phil asks, a challenge clear in his voice, and as far as Matt can see, he dodges the question rather skillfully.

"Nothin', but it's a justified question and you know it as well as I do."

Phil looks at Matt and his olive eyes are appealing, almost begging. "Don't make me say it aloud, man. Please don't."

Matt thinks that this is getting all sorts of weird in ways he does not understand and isn't sure whether he even wants to, but there's one thing he does understand - he understands that he has never heard Phil say 'please' in any context, not to anybody, and the fact that he's saying it now, to _Matt_ out of all people, speaks more languages than Matt cares to count.

Again, silence descends, but it isn't hostile and suffocating like last time, but thoughtful and a bit disoriented. Matt realizes that he has the ball but he doesn't have the slightest idea what he is supposed to say, and Phil just stares at him, swallowing convulsively, his bright eyes burning on a frugal flame - they remind Matt of burn-beating; earth and fire, broken brown and burnt leaves on smoldering coals. All the unsaid words float above them like dead fish, and Matt knows he won't let it lie, the whole thing is so odd that he can't, but for now he just clears his throat and says deliberately;

"Jeff's my brother, but that's about as far as it goes. He doesn't listen to me, he never has, and lately even less than before in our lives. If the situation's really as bad as you say it is, I'll do everythin' I can to help him. Just..." Matt says his next words with utter sincerity, "... I don't know what'll come of it."

Phil relaxes visibly, his sharp edges mellowing out a bit. "I'm not expecting a miracle here. It's Jeff we're talking about here, remember? Just try to get through to him. Force your point through if you have to. For his sake." Phil gives him an investigative, sideways kind of glance before looking away; Matt can almost feel the scrutiny on the surface of his skin.

"And for your own too. Frankly, I think you've seen better days."

Matt huffs and rolls his eyes. "No shit."

"I won't pretend to know what it's like to live in your brother's shadow," Phil says quietly, and a slightly bitter tone creeps into his voice. "I haven't talked to mine in eight years. But that being as it is, I too know a thing or two about tricky family relations."

"You have a brother?" Matt knows about Phil's two sisters, but he has never heard a word about a brother. He finds himself being interested about the story behind it, but Phil does not seem like he wants to talk about that particular subject.

"I do. Or rather, I did." He shrugs, picking nonexistent dust particles from the sleeve of his hoodie. "But it's not important. Just letting you know that I might not be as oblivious as you think."

Phil stands up, the first time after he sat down in the beginning of his visit, and his presence is a blazing thing, polished and waxed, almost a physical sensation, despite his scruffy exterior and the fact that he looks like more than a little lost. Matt supposes that some people just are like that.

"Anyway. I've said what I came here to say; the rest is up to you. Uhh..." Phil runs his fingers through his hair, chewing on his lip ring, and Matt sort of wants to point out to him how out of place he looks like. "There's one more thing, though. I need to ask you a personal favor. If you don't want to do it for me, then just... do it for your brother, okay?" And with that he shoves his hand into his pocket and takes out a creased, white envelope with one word written on its back - _Jeff_.

He hands it out to Matt who takes it and looks at it, then at Phil, then back at the letter again. He is now beyond perplexed, and doesn't even try to hide it.

"Phil... what am I supposed to make of this?"

"You can make what you want of it, Matt, I don't really care," Phil says tiredly. "Just, please, give it to Jeff. That's all I want. After tonight we don't ever have to mention this again."

_Oh, I __**will **__mention this, you better believe that, _Matt thinks, but says nothing aloud. _If you think I'm just gonna to sweep the whole thing under the carpet, you've got another thing coming. _

"I know I can't stop you from reading the letter if that's what you want to do, but I suppose there's nothing in it that you wouldn't have guessed already." Phil is looking at the floor, and only now does Matt notice that the man is pale as a sheet; to Matt he looks a bit ill. He looks like he's trying to breathe with collapsed lungs.

In a way Matt really does not want to do this favor for Phil (and he does realize that at the end of the day it is probably a huge service), perhaps for no other reason whatsoever than for him being such an utter prick sometimes - a part of him just wants to throw the letter away as soon as Phil has left the room. But he thinks that by doing that he would probably also do Jeff a disservice, and that's the last thing he wants.

Matt puts the envelope on the table, and he doesn't think about his next words; if he did, he wouldn't say them at all.

"I'll give this to him on one condition."

Phil looks back at him, his lean face unreadable. He doesn't even blink.

"What would that be?"

"Say it. Aloud. Tell me why you came here, why you want him to have this, why you care." Matt tries his best for his voice not to tremble (damn his nerves) and he thinks this is probably a terrible, horrible idea, but he needs to hear it, or otherwise he can't believe that any of this is happening for real. "Put it all in one sentence."

The change in Phil, compared to what he was just a few seconds ago, is astounding. Matt knows the younger man has an extremely short fuse, but he has never seen the storm rising so quickly within anybody. It's as if a trigger has gone off somewhere in the depths of Phil, and at that moment Matt truly understands why people sometimes choose to tiptoe around the man; he is sharp, beguiling, magnificent in his own, quaint way, but his anger cuts like glass blades, and this situation is in no way an exception. Matt can read people's body language quite well, and every ounce, every cell in Phil's essence screams out the fact that he wants to smash Matt's head against the wall for doing this to him; and the more times he would manage to do it, the better. Instinctively Matt sharpens his reflexes and tenses his muscles, preparing himself for the attack, even though he already knows that should a fight break out, out the two of them he would likely to be the losing party - Phil is younger and in a better shape, and above all, he is pissed.

Phil lets out a small, throaty sound that Matt recognizes as one of those bitter laughs (having heard a few of them himself over the years) and his tone is a little too soft to be anything but dangerous when he says;

"No mercy then, huh?"

He strides to Matt with his tired eyes burning (on a full flame this time, Matt cannot help but notice) and grabs him by the collar of his T-shirt, his cool fingers like forceps, breath reeking of coffee and peppermint, and for a moment there Matt is really expecting the punch, the smash, the crack of his skull; but to his surprise none of those things ever come. Instead there's something else; Phil yanks Matt closer, very close, crossing every boundary of a personal space in less than a second, pressing himself against the other man (it is weird, bordering on an alien feeling, even though they have been pressed against each other plenty of times in the ring) and leaning in to whisper hoarsely, brokenly to his ear;

"You wanna hear it? Do you? Then hear it and fucking choke on it, _Matty_," the name that Jeff sometimes used to call Matt when they were kids is spat out as if it was cyanide, and Matt flinches as it shoots through his body like a silver bullet, "because after this you'll _never_ hear it again." Phil's lips brush Matt's earlobe and his hot breath sweeps his cheek, and suddenly Matt wishes that Phil would have just beaten him up instead of this, this is too much, with Phil like that, _adamant,_ and so close, it is like that feeling you get when you accidentally miss a step on stairs -

"_I love him_."

And just like that, in a matter of mere seconds, the whole world has gone crazy.

Matt does not know whether he actually expected Phil to say those words, but now that they're out, he wishes he had never asked Phil to utter them aloud after all. They had sounded very different in his own head; these words are bare and raw and desperate. He wants to say something rational that would turn this whole situation into something he could process properly, but the words just don't come out, and then Phil pushes Matt away so harshly that he almost hits the wall. He stumbles, but manages to keep his balance, and Phil takes a step backwards, spreading his arms, as if to say _I didn't mean to, but it happened. What can you do_. He looks... wrong, like something was a bit off with him, and before Matt can so much as open his mouth, the other man has turned around and marched out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him so loud that it must have echoed all the way up to the 12th floor.

Matt sits down, completely dumbstruck. He doesn't know whether he should laugh or cry, whether this whole thing has been a comedy or a tragedy - or a farce. He finds himself thinking about all the things that he had no idea about, and only now does he realize that he should have dug it out of Phil whether the man actually has something to do with Jeff's supposed downfall - Maybe Phil did something, something to push him off the edge (and Matt knows that sometimes it does not take much), and as ludicrous as it seems even after what Phil just said, the more he thinks about it, the more believable it actually sounds.

_But then why come and talk to me in the first place instead of just trying quietly to pass the whole thing over? _

No. It doesn't make sense after all. But there is one thing he is sure about: if Phil had the balls to come here and confront him about this, then Matt sure as hell will have the balls to confront the man even further – anything else would feel too much like giving up.

But it will have to wait. _The first thing tomorrow, _he decides, _I'll call Jeff. _Not tonight. Because as much as Matt wants answers, he can't bring himself to do it yet. Stubborn questions like _did they have an affair? Or a fling? Why didn't Jeff tell me? When? How? Why?_ circle tiresomely around in his head, quieting down (but not dying) little by little as there is no way they can be answered yet.

He realizes something, though, now that he thinks about it; there is no way Phil would say something like that had it been something as simple as some sort of a one night stand. _Christ, it must've been going on for ages, how the hell didn't I notice __**anything?**_ _I must be blind as a fucking bat. _

And then Matt looks at the letter on the table. He looks at it for quite a while.

He knows he shouldn't, he knows it very well. Jeff would hate him forever and then some. And yet, there's a thought in his head, clear as a cloudless sky: _Jeff doesn't need to know._

And it is true. The envelope was practically open when Phil left it there, just a small piece of tape holding it closed; there would be no telling whether someone had read its contents. That raises a rather baffling question of whether Phil actually _wanted_ Matt to read the letter in question, but the thought sounds ridiculous so Matt dismisses it... and then he thinks about what Phil said earlier, about the sort of person you can tell everything to; and that perhaps a person of that kind might want to pour their heart out once in a blue moon, and maybe, just maybe, to someone thought most unlikely to listen.

Matt snorts to himself. _It's just your ego playing tricks on you, Matty boy; that never-ending need of yours to feel yourself important. _ He thinks that's probably exactly what it is, but the thought has some kind of a feeble echo of an echo that he can't ignore no matter how much he wants to.

And yet... no. He can't. Because enough is enough. Because this evening has been confusing enough without him reading whatever it is that that letter might contain, and besides in the very end it is not meant for his eyes, any of it.

After all, Matt manages to fight against his nature for quite some time. After over two hours of tossing and turning between the expensive cotton sheets, without getting an eyeful of sleep, he gets up, turns on all the lights he has already turned off once, opens the envelope with fidgety fingers and starts reading.


End file.
